


I'm the same bad news as you

by hakyeonni



Series: ashes to ashes [2]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Angst, Assassins & Hitmen, Flashbacks, M/M, Minor Violence, Pre-Slash, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, in which jaehwan and hakyeon are both fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:04:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: jaehwan loses himself, rebuilt in the image of the cold man standing in front of him, so very far away from all that he knows to be real.





	I'm the same bad news as you

**Author's Note:**

> this is dark and gritty, and now that you've been warned, i hope you enjoy.

“Do you know what it feels like to get shot?”

 _What an odd question_ , Jaehwan thinks, shaking his head. His hands are shaking and he folds them together behind his back so Ghost doesn’t see. _Don’t let them see your weakness._ No one told him that, but they didn’t have to. It’s implied. Assassins aren’t weak. They’re impassive and immovable, unshakeable, carved from stone. He can’t be all those things—not like Ghost seems to—but he’s trying his best.

 _Shoulda stayed in the gang,_ he thinks, and presses his lips together.

Ghost tilts the gun. Even like this, at night, the moonlight is bright enough to catch the elaborate design on the hilt, the tiny cross dangling from the bottom; it’s a beautiful gun, certainly more beautiful than the one strapped to Jaehwan’s side, which is a plain black standard-issue Glock 9mm. It’s familiar and it makes him feel safe—as safe as he can be, considering the circumstances—but it doesn’t compare to Ghost’s.

“When I ask a question,” Ghost says softly, catching Jaehwan’s eyes, “I expect an answer.”

Jaehwan only eyes him for a second before replying. “No. I haven’t.”

Ghost smiles, and it transforms him—it makes him even more terrifying, if such a thing was possible. He’s even more beautiful like that. Jaehwan only has a second to shiver before Ghost raises the gun and points it at his chest and then he freezes, stiffening, his mind racing. Does he reach for his own gun? Does he try to disarm Ghost? Does he duck, run?

Before he can decide, though, Ghost narrows his eyes and squeezes the trigger and Jaehwan’s world goes black.

//

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Ghost looming over him, eyes hard and cold. Jaehwan struggles to sit up and nearly howls at the pain in his shoulder; it’s worse than anything he’s ever felt before, Jesus. At least he’s _alive_. He hadn’t expected that.

He really should stop having expectations about _any_ of this.

“You fucking shot me,” he breathes, this time struggling upright, leaning on his right side. He realises that they’re back in his apartment, although he has no idea what time it is or even how Ghost managed to get him here. “What the fuck? Is that part of your training? Take me out to the middle of nowhere and _shoot_ me? Were you trying to kill me?”

“If I was trying to kill you, you’d be dead.” Ghost says those words impassively, but they send a chill down Jaehwan’s spine. He has no doubt of that.

“So? Why’d you do it?”

Ghost turns away and when he turns back around he has gloves on, a suturing thread in his hands, and a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He’s shirtless, wearing only his gun, and Jaehwan can’t help himself from looking. The scar carved into the flesh of Ghost’s chest stands out so starkly it’s like his eye is trained there—red and raised and angry, and very painful by the looks of things. “Oh, no,” Jaehwan starts, shifting backwards in his bed and raising his good arm. “You’re not going to—”

“My next bullet will be going through your head if you don’t shut up,” Ghost replies almost cheerfully, and for someone who _must_ be deranged he sounds rather quite sane.

Jaehwan settles and lets Ghost peel the bandage away from the wound. It looks nasty but clean; Ghost is a damned good shot. Not that that should be surprising. “Why did you shoot me?” he asks again, not knowing whether he’ll get an answer or not. Sometimes Ghost chooses to answer his questions, but most of the time he just smiles, or shakes his head.

“So when you’re next staring down the barrel of a gun, you’ll have no fear.” Ghost wipes down the wound with alcohol, making Jaehwan hiss, before leaning down and beginning to stitch him up without any warning. “So you won’t hesitate.” Jaehwan grunts, and he smiles again. “A rite of passage. One of many.”

“Wish I could back out now,” Jaehwan gets out around gritted teeth, clenching his good fist as he pictures punching Ghost in the head. The pain is unbelievable, excruciating—he almost wishes he could black out again.

At this Ghost looks up at him, and their faces are so close together that for the breath of a moment there’s— _something_ there, something in the way Ghost’s eyes flick down to his lips. “If you did that, I really _would_ have to kill you. And I’d regret that,” Ghost replies, before turning back to the wound to continue suturing.

//

Despite the fact that Jaehwan is now effectively out of commission—even though Ghost shot him in his left shoulder, his non-shooting arm, he learns his lesson when he tries to fire his gun and the recoil makes him drop to his knees with the pain—Ghost doesn’t seem to relent, doesn’t give him a moment’s rest. If he’s not being quizzed on pressure points in the human body, he’s taking apart Ghost’s weapons, cleaning them, putting them back together, over and over again as Ghost sleeps in Jaehwan’s bed or eats Jaehwan’s food. If it were anyone else Jaehwan would say it was intimate, but it’s not—Ghost is clinical, clipped, so far removed from any human emotion that Jaehwan recognises that he might be an alien of some sort, Jaehwan can’t tell. He doesn’t much care, either. The pain in that first week is otherworldly. Half the time he feels like he’s about to die; the other half, he wishes he would.

It’s a rare occasion that they’re both up before sunset—their profession lends itself to the cover of darkness, and the longer his training goes on the longer Jaehwan thinks he could get used to sleeping during the day and waking at night—but for some reason Ghost has woken him up in the late afternoon. They’re sitting on Jaehwan’s tiny, shitty balcony, Ghost with a cigarette in his trembling fingers, Jaehwan clutching a bottle of soju. It’s an indulgence that usually wouldn’t be allowed, but ever since Ghost shot him, he’s been allowed these small victories. The sunlight is streaming down on them both, and as per usual Ghost is wearing nothing but his holster, showing an expanse of tanned skin that Jaehwan has to fight to keep his eyes away from. He’s not exactly succeeding, and it’s this that allows him to spot the scar on Ghost’s left shoulder from where he’s hunched over in his seat, faded and pink. Why he gets out of his seat to touch it, though, he’s not sure; he doesn’t get very far because Ghost catches his wrist almost lazily, a threat in his eyes. “Don’t,” he spits.

“Did you get shot too?” he asks anyway, knowing he’s either going to get punched or get a non-answer but forging ahead regardless. “Is this how you did it?”

Ghost waves his cigarette in the air in a vaguely threatening way. “Don’t make me put this out on you.”

“You wouldn’t,” Jaehwan challenges, not entirely being truthful. He has no doubt Ghost would put out a cigarette on him if he so desired. He just doubts he’ll do it _now_. “I don’t know anything about anything, Ghost. I’m… lost.”

With barely a flick of his hand, Ghost shoves Jaehwan across the balcony into the railing without even batting an eyelid. “Stay lost,” he spits. “My job isn’t to give you answers. My job is to train you. When your last trial is complete you’ll never see me again. You’ll forget. It doesn’t matter.”

Jaehwan doesn’t have the words to explain that it _does_ matter, because how can he forget Ghost? It’s been three months and Jaehwan is no closer to understanding Ghost now than he was the first day they met, but—even though Ghost shot him, even though he’s slammed Jaehwan into walls, choked him, threatened to kill him more times than Jaehwan can count—even though he’s done all this with a cold indifference in his eyes—even though all he is to Ghost is a liability, a responsibility that he’s been saddled with that he doesn’t seem to want at all—even though, even though, Jaehwan somehow knows that he won’t ever be able to forget.

 

_back_

 

“Package,” Jaehwan grunts at the old man manning the counter of the bar, placing both his hands flat on the faded wood and regretting it immediately when they come back sticky.

The old man doesn’t even look up from where he’s pouring vodka into a dirty glass. “Out the back,” he sighs, and jerks a thumb over his shoulder at a door.

Jaehwan does as he’s told, pushing through the door—it squeaks disdainfully at him as if to say _don’t do this!_ —and clattering down the stairs, which bow and threaten to give way underneath his boots. He can smell the metallic scent of blood on the air, and as he traipses down a dank hallway that opens into a large space, he realises why. It’s an underground fighting ring (although they’ve taken the underground part quite literally) and he can’t stop his eyebrows from raising as he stares at the crudely-constructed cage erected in the middle of the room. There’s two men in there right now, beating the ever-living shit out of each other, and he watches somewhat mesmerised. He’s seen MMA fights on television, of course, but this is brutal, savage; as he watches, one of the men ends up on the floor, where the other man kicks him in the side of the head so hard his whole body snaps around and he hits the wire.

“Boy,” someone calls, and Jaehwan turns. It’s a term he’s long-since gotten used to, despite being twenty four and well past boyhood; he first got it in the army and now in the gang. It comes part and parcel with being the runt of the litter. “Package?”

As he’s ambling over to a little office—it’s the only way he can describe it, really, even though it’s dingy and shitty—he sees it’s Jiseok who’s called him, and he brightens considerably. Jiseok is some low-level crime lord of dubious importance in the local scene, but he’s been friendly to Jaehwan from the start—unlike some of the others, who look at him like he’s shit under their shoe—and he greets him with a smile now, reaching for Jaehwan’s hand to pull him into a hug. “Didn’t realise they’d be sending you.”

“Didn’t realise you’d be here,” Jaehwan counters, shutting the door before pulling off his backpack and slamming it down on the desk next to Jiseok. “You’ve got fingers in every pie.”

Jiseok just grins. “S’how the game is,” he replies, but his eyes are on the two bricks of coke that Jaehwan’s pulling out of his backpack. “Nice. Want some for the road?”

It’s good stuff—Jaehwan would know, since he’s been hearing nothing but details of imports and exports for months now—but he shakes his head as he pulls on his empty backpack, as much as he hates himself for it. “Still gotta make a few deliveries before dawn. But thanks.”

“Stay and watch a fight,” Jiseok counters, and as he crouches to put the bricks in the safe that Jaehwan hadn’t noticed previously, his shirt rides up, exposing the gun he’s got stuffed in the waistband of his jeans. “The next guy’s a fuckin’ psycho. Great to watch, though.” He turns, squints up at Jaehwan. “You don’t wanna get in the ring? Could make a killing betting against you.”

“Fuck you,” Jaehwan barks, but he’s smiling. “I’ll watch, but I’m not stepping foot inside it. I’m no use to anyone in the hospital.”

They make their way out of the office and towards the ring, where Jaehwan can spot two men situated inside it already. One of them is thin and wiry, his arms scattered with scratchy prison tattoos. The other is tall, lithe, his golden skin unmarred except for the curious scar over his heart. It’s red and raised, and it’s a symbol that Jaehwan’s never seen before: a _P_ intersecting an _X_. It must be an identifier, he supposes, although he doesn’t know which gangs practice scarification; most just prefer tattoos, which are easier to explain away if you’re hauled into jail. This is archaic and intense, and Jaehwan can’t keep his eyes off the man as he takes a drink of water and turns towards his opponent.

The moment they touch fists and back away to begin circling each other, it’s like a switch is flicked in this man—a fire is lit behind his eyes, and he looks alive, animated. Jaehwan wouldn’t describe himself as particularly bloodthirsty, for the most part, but there’s something mesmerising about this man, about how he punches like it’s the last thing he does on earth, frenzied and almost rabid. The fight is over within minutes, and the scarred man has to be hauled off his opponent, the both of them splattered with blood. The crowd is roaring, and besides him Jiseok looks smug, but Jaehwan is stuck somewhere between awe and horror.

“Yeah, not for me,” he mutters, turning to clap Jiseok on the shoulder. “I’ll see you round.”

He leaves with the sound of the crowd roaring in his ears, his stomach somehow twisted into knots, unable to shift the image of that man, his face blood-splattered and twisted into a grin, from his mind.

 

_forward_

 

“Wake up.”

It’s not so much those words that wake him up but the fact that Ghost’s sitting on top of him, thighs bracketing Jaehwan’s hips—and when he snaps into alertness he’s aware of the biting teeth of metal at his neck. In the darkness he can just see the outline of him thanks to the blurred light creeping in through the crack underneath the door, can see that for once he’s shirtless but not wearing his gun. _Why?_ he thinks, and then— _this is my chance._

He takes advantage of the element of surprise and snaps upright, forcing Ghost’s wrist away from his neck and then they’re up, sparring, and even though his wound is screaming at him to stop he _can’t_. He manages to wrench the knife out of Ghost’s hand and then they’re on the floor and Jaehwan’s got his fingers wrapped around Ghost’s neck, the knife pointed at his jugular. Ghost immediately stops struggling, and as Jaehwan adjusts to the darkness he can see his eyes are wide open. “Don’t fucking move,” he snarls, and as if to punctuate this point digs the knife in.

Ghost makes a choked noise, but the expression on his face is shrewd. “You wouldn’t,” he says, confidently. Too confidently. Jaehwan squeezes harder.

“What’s stopping me?”

“You don’t want to,” Ghost croaks out from around Jaehwan’s hand.

The knife clatters to the floor, but Jaehwan doesn’t loosen his hold. “How do you know I don’t want to?”

“Because you’re soft, have been since day one.”

Jaehwan leans down so their faces are close together, squeezes even harder—Ghost could almost certainly get out of this if he wanted to but he just lies there, gasping, letting Jaehwan choke the life out of him slowly, for reasons Jaehwan can’t fathom. “Stop fucking trying to kill me,” he hisses. “Just—stop. I listen to you. I follow you everywhere. I do everything you tell me to. So stop trying to break me, for fuck’s sake.”

“Better me than someone else.”

Jaehwan could scream—he nearly does. Is this all Ghost knows? Is cruelty his way of life? Mercy is not a word he’s familiar with, apparently, and Jaehwan’s wound is killing him and he’s tired, so tired. It’s been clear that Ghost hasn’t wanted anything to do with him since day one. That doesn’t mean he deserves to be a punching bag. “Why?” he asks eventually, loosening his hold on Ghost’s neck a fraction—he gasps with relief. “Why do you hate me so fucking much?”

He doesn’t really expect an answer, so when Ghost speaks, he nearly topples backwards out of surprise. “Training newbies sucks,” is all he says, and Jaehwan snarls and smacks his head into the floor. “Wasn’t meant to be like this—”

“What was it meant to be like?” Jaehwan roars, yanking Ghost upwards so they’re chest to chest, panting, glaring hatefully at each other in the darkness. “Because—why should I keep doing this? You fucking hate me and—and I’m shit at everything I do—why don’t I just go back to the gang? Better still why don’t I just put a bullet in my own fucking head—put one in yours first—since we're both just murderers—”

“Shut up,” Ghost growls, and then he’s finally, _finally_ fighting back. Jaehwan doesn’t resist as Ghost hauls him upright, slamming him into the wall so hard his head makes a sickening _crack_ noise. He doesn’t flinch when Ghost takes his gun from his holster—he sleeps with it, now, has done for three months and counting—and holds it under his chin. “Stop fucking _whining_.”

“Tell me the truth,” Jaehwan breathes, and Ghost flicks off the safety. “What’s your fucking problem? Nothing I’ve done has been good enough for you from the start.”

Ghost’s eyes search his, and whatever he’s looking for in Jaehwan’s face he must find—because he steps back, handing Jaehwan his gun with an expression that Jaehwan has not seen him wear before. He looks contrite, almost. If he thought Ghost had a heart he’d say he looked apologetic, but Jaehwan knows his eyes truly are deceiving him the moment he thinks that. “Vigil doesn’t take too kindly to failures,” Ghost murmurs, and touches the scar on his chest almost absentmindedly. When he looks back up at Jaehwan, there’s pain in his eyes, and Jaehwan’s head starts spinning at the emotional whiplash of it all. “I fucked up on a mission, badly. More people died than necessary. Including the agent I was partnered with. This is my punishment.”

“Training newbies is a punishment?”

“It is when you’re me,” Ghost replies, and—even though he knows it shouldn’t—Jaehwan’s heart aches a little for him. But he doesn’t say it expecting pity. He says it matter-of-factly, like Jaehwan’s nothing but an annoying insect that he has to deal with, the same way he’s been dealing with him for the past three months. “There’s been two before you. One got himself killed in his last trial. The other… ran away.” He shrugs. “I assume Vigil dealt with him.”

Jaehwan doesn’t even want to _think_ about how Vigil would deal with a runaway if their idea of ordaining new recruits involves carving into their flesh with a white-hot blade, and he shudders. “Why me?” he asks simply, flicking the safety back on and slipping his gun back in his holster. It’s the question he’s been wanting to ask since the beginning, the one he never really had the courage to. _Why him?_

“You have no family,” Ghost lists off, sounding bored. He scoops to pick the knife off the floor, plays with it as he talks. “No ties. Left the army. Nothing to live for—”

“Not that.” Jaehwan waves a hand, not sure how long Ghost’s sudden openness is going to last but wanting to take advantage of it regardless. “Why _me?”_

The air seems heavy with some tension Jaehwan doesn’t have a name for as Ghost looks at him, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Jaehwan almost wishes he’d smile more. He looks less psychotic like that, more like a regular human being—although he can’t say leaving as many bodies in his wake as Ghost must have would make him much like a regular human being. He doesn’t know anything about him beyond this, he realises, beyond the scope of what Ghost has shown him. This humanity? This is new.

“I didn’t think you could handle it.” Ghost looks away. “Thought—dunno. If you died they’d reassign me to something else. Anything else.”

“You picked me because you wanted me to die?”

Ghost rolls his eyes, and he looks so melodramatic Jaehwan almost wants to laugh. “I’m a contract killer, Jaehwan. What were you expecting?”

 _Not this,_ Jaehwan thinks, his tongue heavy in his mouth as he watches Ghost play with the knife. His body is so smooth, the only mark on him the scar over his heart. _Never this._ “I’m starting to learn not to expect anything with you,” he replies, fighting to keep his voice even. He hates himself for what he’s about to ask, hates this vulnerability—he knows Ghost loathes weakness. “Do you still wish I’d die?”

“No,” Ghost whispers, so quiet that the words are gone as soon as they’re out of his mouth—but they hang in the air between them, unerasable. He won’t meet Jaehwan’s eyes. “Not anymore.”

And then he’s gone, leaving Jaehwan to sag against the wall and palpate his bandages, slowly being stained red from where he’s popped a stitch open, his head rushing with so many thoughts he doesn’t even know where to begin dissecting them all.

//

This time he’s woken by Ghost’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. There’s no knife at his throat, no gun between his eyes, and when he sits up he can see that Ghost is wearing a shirt, jeans, has a knife strapped to his thigh. “Let’s go.”

It’s been two weeks since Ghost shot him, and the wound is making good progress—another four weeks and he’ll be back to usual, Ghost says. Until then it’s more theoretical stuff, more cleaning weapons, more mindless hours wasted sitting on the balcony with thousands of unspoken questions hovering between them. Jaehwan looks at Ghost until he can’t see anything but him, visions of his face swimming in front of his eyes like particularly vivid hallucinations, and he still doesn’t have any answers. He wants to ask, sometimes— _what’s your real name? why did you join Vigil? do you enjoy it? does taking lives fill some void in you?_ —but he’s always too afraid to, and so that’s how they stay, smothered by the weight of their silence.

“Where are we going?” he asks, struggling to pull a tshirt over his head but managing.

“For a drive,” Ghost replies, cryptic as ever, and then he’s gone, clattering down the hall in his boots that he’d been wearing the first time they’d met. Jaehwan doubts he even _owns_ another pair of shoes, and the thought of that makes him shudder. For a contract-killer-in-training, he’s still squeamish at the thought of Ghost tracking dried blood all through his shithole of an apartment.

His squeamishness increases when they make their way down to the garage and Ghost throws him the keys to a stupidly expensive sports car. “Is this yours?” he asks, and Ghost shakes his head. “A dead man’s, then.”

“Or dead woman’s,” Ghost rebuts as they slip inside. “We don’t discriminate.”

No, Jaehwan supposes, they don’t. Any life can be extinguished, for a cost. It’s something Jaehwan sort of knew in a vague sense when he was in a gang, but it’s not until he met Ghost that it sharpened into a painful reality that hurts to think about, sometimes. People die. People get _killed_. And that’s his job, what all this training is shaping him to become. Someone who kills.

He doesn’t even know if he has it in him.

“How many?”

The question slips out of him before he can temper it, and out of his peripheral vision he catches Ghost staring at him in surprise, streetlights illuminating and darkening his face in turn. “How many what?”

“How many people have you killed?”

Ghost laughs, like that wasn’t the question he was expecting—and as Jaehwan stares at him he realises that’s the first time he’s ever heard Ghost laugh. It’s a warm laugh, an open one; Jaehwan’s stomach does a flip as he turns back to the road. It shouldn’t be endearing. It really shouldn’t, considering what Ghost is laughing over. But somehow it _is_. “I don’t know,” he chokes out. “I just—I don’t know. I’ve been doing this for eight years. You work it out. Hundreds, probably.”

Hundreds of lives Ghost has extinguished. He probably has a rap sheet longer than Jaehwan’s arm. And yet even as cold as he’s been, sitting there in the car with Jaehwan, he’s never seemed more alive—and a shiver runs down his spine as he realises that. He’s getting endeared to Ghost, and even he knows that’s a bad idea.

They drive through the night, Jaehwan taking turns when Ghost instructs him to; the city disappears behind them as they drive further and further into the countryside, the darkness seeming to swallow them up entirely. He has no idea where they’re going, and whenever he asks, Ghost doesn’t answer. It’s something that Jaehwan probably should be used to by now, but—it stings. After what happened the other day, it stings.

“Turn here,” Ghost mumbles, digging around in his pocket to pull out his pack of cigarettes. “Down this drive.”

Illuminated in the headlights is a Western-style house, huge and ornate and dripping with opulence. Jaehwan just stares at it as he draws the car to a stop, utterly confused, and when he winds down the window he realises he can hear the sea and smell salt on the air. “A holiday?” he jokes.

Ghost looks at him, the tip of his cigarette glowing a fierce orange in the blackness. “There’s a man inside. Mid-forties, no family. Works in some corporation.” He blows smoke in Jaehwan’s face, cocks an eyebrow. “He owes me money. Do something about it.”

Jaehwan has so many questions it’s almost stupid, but the one that bursts free is the one that he thinks of first. “What the hell do you mean do something about it? I’m injured.” When Ghost doesn’t reply, he splutters, continuing. “I—I mean, do you want me to rough him up? Kill him? Why does he owe you money? How—how far am I allowed to go?”

Leaning across the center console, Ghost touches Jaehwan’s chest, touches the hilt of his gun in his holster. “Do something about it,” he says, quiet, his voice steel, and Jaehwan’s head spins.

His hands are shaking as he slips out of the car, closing the door quietly behind him. Surely Ghost doesn’t want him to kill this man—surely not after only three months of training? He doesn’t have the faintest clue why he, the one with the gunshot wound, is the one delegated to rough up some businessman (why does he even owe Ghost money, anyway?) but he knows better than to argue.

He turns back to look at Ghost—and he’s standing next to the car, tip of the cigarette trembling, a blur, and his eyes are so hard that Jaehwan swallows his protests and turns back to the house.

It only takes three kicks to the door before the hinges give way, and he draws his gun as he steps inside. One man, Ghost had said, but he’s not taking his chances; he keeps his back to the wall as he creeps up the stairs, following the noise of muffled footsteps. Almost automatically he feels himself crouching low, melting into the blackness, moving silently. Flick off safety. Hold breath crossing floorboards. There’s nothing in his mind. He isn’t thinking about everything Ghost’s taught him— _keep to the shadows, watch where you put your feet, listen for guns cocking or of the slide of a knife from a sheath, never turn your back on an area you haven’t cleared, take out the target cleanly, don’t leave a trail, don’t leave witnesses._ His mind is utterly blank.

The man is in the bedroom, and he freezes when he spies Jaehwan, but Jaehwan doesn’t give him a chance to react. He crosses the floor in two strides and hits him with the butt of his pistol. He falls to the floor, groaning, but—weakness, don’t show weakness, Jaehwan reaches down and grabs him by the fabric of his shirt and wrenches him upright, ignoring the way his wound starts screaming at him. It’s so easy to send the man sailing into the nearest wall. He hits it headfirst and slumps down, blood pouring down his face from his busted nose. Easy, easy, easy. Jaehwan nearly starts laughing.

“Where’s the money?” he asks, quietly, holding his gun loosely in the man’s direction.

“M—money? Is this—Ghost? Fuck, I—” He’s cut off by Jaehwan launching a kick into the man’s guts nonchalantly. “Fuck, don’t, please! I said I’d get him the money—”

“Where’s the money?” Jaehwan asks again, louder this time. “Get up.”

The man does, using the wall to support him. There’s blood all down his mouth and chin, dripping onto the floor; his nose is almost certainly broken. The sight of it ignites some spark in Jaehwan, and then he’s barging into the man, pressing the barrel of his pistol underneath his chin. “Where’s the fucking money?”

“In the boot of my car,” the man gets out, his eyes wide. “Please don’t kill me, please please please don’t kill me—”

“I could,” Jaehwan whispers. “I could.”

He grabs the man by the back of the neck and propels him out of the bedroom, using his other hand to hold his gun to the back of his neck. They walk down the stairs together, the man’s legs nearly giving way underneath him, but Jaehwan doesn’t relent. He doesn’t say a word as the man leads him through the house to his garage, points at the car parked in there with a trembling hand. In fact, he doesn’t say another word until he drags the man, bag in hand, back out to Ghost and shoves him at Ghost’s feet.

Ghosts looks down at him, blank, impassive. His arms are folded. He doesn’t even look concerned. “How much?”

“There’s three quarters in there—” the man splutters.

Ghost is quick, blindingly so. Jaehwan barely sees his leg move as he kicks the man in the face, so savagely he spins backward and hits the gravel in front of Jaehwan, whimpering. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“Coming,” the man sobs, crawling towards Jaehwan, evidently deciding he’s the merciful one. “Please, just—”

“What do you want me to do?” Jaehwan asks, quietly, gun still in hand.

Ghost’s eyes flick from the gun to the man at Jaehwan’s feet, crying. Jaehwan can see the wheels turning in his head, weighing his choices; so much power in the palm of his hands, in the palms of their hands. Jaehwan’s head spins.

“Leave him.” Ghost picks up the bag and opens the car door. “Let’s go.”

It’s not until they’re half an hour away that Jaehwan snaps back to himself so violently he swerves at nothing, the car’s wheels squealing as it nearly loses it before he powers out of the slide, slamming on the brakes and coming to a dead stop in the middle of the road. Ghost is looking at him, surprised, but all he can do is clench and unclench his fingers on the leather of the steering wheel. There’s blood on them. There’s blood on his hands. How did he not notice that before? How didn’t he see? Who—who _was_ he? Who is he? He hadn’t even hesitated. He hadn’t paused to think. He’d just done what Ghost told him, and—oh, god—

He stumbles out of the car and starts running, although to where, he doesn’t know. He just can’t sit in that car with the implicit knowledge that when Ghost had asked him to injure, he’d done it, without thinking about it. When Ghosts asks him to kill, will he do it without thinking about it? Is this all he is now, reduced to nothing but Ghost’s whims? He’d just been acting on instinct, and while he knows, he knows that this is what all his training has been doing… He can’t. Knowledge was powerful when it was kept far away from him. Now he knows, he doesn’t want anything to do with it, and he feels so very small, his shoes slapping on the asphalt as he runs.

Vigil has, for so long, felt like a dream. Even staring at the scar on Ghost’s chest every day, knowing he would get a matching one one day, did not make it any realer. But now that he has a strange man’s blood on his hands—it’s real. It’s _real_. He’s about to become a contract killer. This isn’t the path he’d ever wanted for himself, and yet he knows he cannot turn back now. He’s trapped. Vigil—to keep vigil, to watch, to hope. He nearly laughs.

He’s fast, but Ghost is, somehow, faster, not least because his shoulder is hurting like a bitch. Ghost barrels into him from behind, wrapping both arms around Jaehwan’s waist, pulling him to a stop. In comparison to the way Jaehwan can’t stop shaking, Ghost is solid, immovable. It’s all Jaehwan can do to cling onto him, and then he’s turning in Ghost’s arms to hug him, sliding his arms around Ghost’s waist and burying his face in the crook of Ghost’s neck. He’s so warm. How can one person be so warm? Jaehwan’s burning up.

“You did well,” Ghost says, such misplaced words of kindness that Jaehwan can barely believe he’s hearing them.

“What have you done to me?”

Ghost pulls away from Jaehwan, cups his cheek. In the darkness Jaehwan cannot see his eyes. He doesn’t want to. “What I must,” he whispers, his thumb stroking Jaehwan’s cheek. “What I must. You did well.”

“I hate you.”

At this Ghost smiles. “I know,” he replies, grinning. “I hated my mentor, too. Just the way things are.” _Mentor_. Such a trite term for what they are. “You’re nearly ready for the final trials. When your shoulder heals.”

This makes Jaehwan hate him all the more. “Fuck you,” he spits, and pushes Ghost away. “You’re a fucking monster.”

“If I’m a monster,” Ghost calls as Jaehwan starts back towards the car, “what does that make you?”

 

_back_

 

“Four bricks this time, hyung? Really?”

Jiseok just laughs at him as Jaehwan hands him the bricks, weighing them in his hands appreciatively. “I’ve got a business to run,” he replies with a shrug. “I have no sympathy for your poor shoulders, kid.”

Pulling a face, Jaehwan rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and rubs at his shoulders. “I’m used to it at this point. You know what could take the edge off, though…”

“Oh, _now_ you want some?” Jiseok laughs, reaching for a box cutter sitting on the table next to him, slicing open one of the bricks. “Only because you asked so nicely.”

Jaehwan doesn’t make a habit of doing this, only because he’s seen what coke addicts look like; some of the other runners in the gang are desperately addicted, pouring money back into the gang to fund their addiction as soon as they earn it, and considering he needs every cent he owns to pay rent he just can’t afford that. But it’s been a long fucking day—this is his tenth delivery—and his whole body aches. This’ll keep him going long enough for him to finish his two remaining deliveries, and then he can finally, finally sleep.

There’s a knock at the door as Jiseok’s cutting the coke into lines, and as Jaehwan looks up he realises it’s that fighter, the one with the strange scar. It’s been a fortnight since Jaehwan was last here, but he hasn’t been able to forget. As Jiseok calls for him to come in, he glides across the floor towards the table, and Jaehwan can’t stop himself from staring. He’s shirtless, wearing nothing but a holster, his gun nestled to his side. Even from here Jaehwan can see a curious design on the hilt. That, compared with how he can’t stop staring at the scar, makes him all the more intrigued. Who _is_ this man?

“Ghost, Jaehwan. Jaehwan, Ghost,” Jiseok says, waving a hand between the two of them. “Want some, Ghost?”

 _Ghost_. It’s a stupid nickname, but one that somehow fits—the man almost seems hardly-there as he bends over and takes the proffered rolled 50,000 won note to snort a line neatly. When he pulls back, rubbing his nose, he meets Jaehwan’s eyes. And smiles.

Fuck the coke. Jaehwan wants to see more of _that_. But there’s a line with his name on it so he takes the note from Ghost’s hand, snorts his line, tips his head back and blinks as he suddenly comes alive once more. Jiseok and Ghost are watching him, and he grins dopily at them. “Thanks, hyung,” he says, clapping Jiseok on the shoulder. “See you next time.”

He’s too caught up in his high and daydreaming about that smile—there’d been something intoxicating about it, something delicious and dangerous that he wants to see more of—to notice Ghost slipping silently out of the office behind him. In fact he doesn’t notice he has a trail at all until he’s unchaining his bike from a pole out the front of the bar; there’s the cold of a gun muzzle pressed to the back of his neck, and then someone whispering in his ear, “Don’t fucking move.”

“I don’t have any money on me, dumbass,” he says, putting his hands in the air and turning. He’s not at all surprised to see that it’s Ghost pointing a gun at him, but now that he can see the gun up close he’s momentarily distracted; the hilt is a beautiful deep crimson, engraved with a pattern that Jaehwan can’t recognise, and there’s a small cross dangling from the bottom of it. A pretty gun for a pretty man, he thinks, and smiles. “Fuck off.”

“Don’t think so,” Ghost replies sullenly.

One moment he’s standing there and the next he’s on the ground, a horrible sharp throbbing pain echoing over his whole face—when he touches his cheek, it comes back wet, and he looks up at Ghost in horror. How could one human being move that—that _fast?_ He draws his gun, but Ghost kicks him in the ribs, stomps on his wrist, and the gun clatters to the ground. _Fuck_. “Motherfucker,” he spits out, writhing underneath Ghost’s foot. “What the fuck do you want?”

“You,” Ghost says, holstering his gun before bending down to draw Jaehwan upright, shoving him into the nearest wall. “I have a job offer for you.”

Jaehwan spits the blood he’s been gathering in his mouth in Ghost’s face.

Ghost, to his credit, doesn’t even flinch.

“Let me tell you a story,” Ghost begins, not seeming to care that Jaehwan patently has no interest in hearing any kind of story from a man who must be psychotic. “Once upon a time there was a drug runner called Jaehwan. Sound familiar? It should. A drug deal went wrong. He was caught in the crossfire, shot, died. The end.”

“You stupid cunt—”

“Shut up,” Ghost snarls, and Jaehwan does, although he doesn’t know why. “I’m offering you a way out of that. My employers are interested in your skills.”

“I don’t have any skills.”

Ghost narrows his eyes. “Clearly, they think you do.”

“What’s the work?”

At this, Ghost pauses. He releases Jaehwan and takes a step back, mulling over his words. “I prefer to call myself a contract killer. Some prefer the word assassin. Others still, hitman. You get the idea.”

Jaehwan’s stunned into silence, and not just because this is the most ridiculous situation he has ever been in. “A—a contract killer? You—you fucking _kill_ people? What the fuck makes you think I’d be interested in that?”

“ _I_ don’t think anything,” Ghost says with a shrug. “I’m not paid to think anything. I’m paid to bring you in. It’s good money. It’ll save you dying when—not if, when—a deal goes wrong. And…” Here he slides closer to Jaehwan, regarding him with narrowed eyes. “There’s a bloodthirsty streak in you. I can see it.”

 _Good money. It’ll save you dying. There’s a bloodthirsty streak in you._ It’s too fucking much, all at once—he’s not a murderer. He’s never, never been a murderer. Not even after what happened in the army. He’s never killed someone before. He’s… he’s never wanted to. _Good money._ Fuck, his head is spinning. Even—even with his life as it is now, even with nothing to live for, even though he wakes up every morning hating himself a little more, counting down the days until he inevitably dies—even with all of that, he’s not a killer.

Ghost just regards him evenly, clearly reading the thoughts running across his face. “You don’t have to decide now,” he says—and it’s the first time he’s actually sounded _human_ , there’s a vestige of _warmth_ in his voice, and Jaehwan flinches with the shock of it. “I’ll be back in a week. You can tell me then.”

And then he’s gone, apparating out of Jaehwan’s life as quickly as he appeared in it, leaving Jaehwan alone and destitute in the alley with nothing but blood streaming down his face and the sinking feeling in his stomach that somehow, as much as he may not want it to, his life is about to change irreparably.

//

By the time a week passes, Jaehwan turning the issue over and over in his mind, he’s made a decision, and he’s not at all surprised to see Ghost waiting for him out the front of his apartment when he returns home from a delivery shift. The sun’s just beginning to rise, and the hazy light of pre-dawn paints Ghost in soft yellows and ochres, setting his skin on fire; when he looks up at Jaehwan with his lips wrapped around a cigarette, Jaehwan can hardly believe he’s real.

“How did you know I live here?” he asks, but it’s not a question, not really—if Ghost really is what he says he is he probably knows every single detail about Jaehwan’s life, shitty and pitiable as it is.

Ghost doesn’t answer, just follows Jaehwan. They clatter up the steps together, and Jaehwan hates himself for thinking it—but just for a moment he allows himself to think of what it would be like if they met under different circumstances.

“Nice place,” Ghost deadpans after Jaehwan has gone through the rigmarole of finding the right key for each of his four locks.

It’s exactly the opposite of a nice place: a tiny, cramped studio apartment that’s falling apart around Jaehwan’s ears, with mould in all the corners and dodgy wiring that means sometimes the lights refuse to turn on at all. The only upside is the balcony, which looks out onto the street; he spends most of his time out there when it’s warm, watching videos on his phone and wasting away his life utterly.

(The fact that he has to work his fingers to the bone delivering drugs all over the city just to be able to afford this place stings, of course, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Yet.)

“Thanks,” Jaehwan replies, and makes his way over to the bar fridge. “Want anything?”

“Got any coke?”

“Which kind?”

Ghost snorts. “The drink kind.”

Jaehwan has both, actually, but obligingly he fetches Ghost a can—not coke at all but rather syrupy too-sweet off-brand cola, because that’s all he can afford—and sits on his bed. Ghost takes the lone chair positioned at the miniscule table and crosses his legs at the knee, sipping from the drink and watching Jaehwan. His eyes… Jaehwan wishes he could say they reflected craziness within, because then it would be easier to write Ghost off as simply insane and be done with it. But his gaze is shrewd, knowing, and Jaehwan wilts under the weight of it.

“Have you decided?”

He knew the question was coming, of course, but still feels blindsided by it. How often is it that one is asked if they would like to become a murderer, after all? “I have. But before I tell you, I’ve got questions.”

“Ask them.” Ghost takes another sip. “Can’t promise I’ll answer them, though.”

“Who are your employers?”

Ghost narrows his eyes, clearly weighing up whether to answer or not. He must decide that Jaehwan will not spill these secrets—whether because he’s too afraid to or because he’s dead at Ghost’s hand, he doesn’t know—because he leans back in his seat a little. “It’s a... I suppose ‘organisation’ is too strong a word… A global network of contract killers. It’s called Vigil.”

 _Vigil_. Jaehwan tastes the word and and sees candles, prayers. “And this?” he continues, reaching forward to brush his fingers over Ghost’s heart, where his scar lays underneath his shirt.

It’s bold of him, and for a moment he thinks Ghost is going to react badly—but then he just quirks an eyebrow. “An initiation ritual. It’s called a _chi rho_. It’s a Christian symbol. It’s from the first two letters of ‘Christ’ when it’s written in Greek.”

“So this is a Christian organisation?”

Ghost shrugs. “Maybe once. Not anymore. It’s just left-over symbolism. A way of reminding us where our loyalties lie.”

He knows, now, knows what that symbol is called, what it means, and he knows the name of this shadowy, mysterious organisation he can’t quite believe he’s about to sign his life over to—but all these answers have given him are more questions, and he doesn’t know where to begin. An initiation ritual? How much must that have hurt, and why does Ghost seem completely unfazed by it?

“I need an answer,” Ghost says suddenly, placing the empty can on the floor. His other hand is resting on his chest, over the strap of his holster, and a pang of fear shoots through Jaehwan, acute and painful. He doubts that, if he says no, he’ll be leaving his apartment alive. There’s something coldly threatening about Ghost’s stance in the chair. It’s as if he’s about to leap for Jaehwan’s throat.

Jaehwan would be lying if he said that he hasn’t been thinking about Ghost’s offer since he walked away in the alley that night—but, honestly, he’s tired. He’s so tired of this shit apartment, of not even being able to afford wifi, of living off ramyun and eggs because the gang takes such a huge cut of his earnings. He’s tired of being utterly alone and completely useless. Depression is exhausting, and being poor is even more exhausting. And—this is what he tells himself, loudly so he cannot hear the small corner of his mind protesting—if he can’t handle it, if it’s too much, he’ll probably be allowed to fade back into obscurity once more. Hopefully. Maybe.

“I’ll do it,” he says, noting in a vague, misty sort of way that his hands are trembling.

Ghost goes very, very still, cocking his head. “You will?” he murmurs, leaning forward so he’s in Jaehwan’s personal space, very real and very _there_. “Do you even know what you’re getting yourself into? I’ll train you for however long it takes. A few months, at least. And I’m not a very sympathetic teacher. If you die, I’m not going to cry for you. If you run away, I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, and then I’ll put a bullet between your eyes. If you can’t cope, I’ll put a bullet between your eyes. Either you do this, or you die.”

 _Or both_ , Jaehwan thinks, and narrows his eyes, shoving Ghost away. “I said I’ll do it,” he spits.

Ghost just looks at him for a moment before turning his head away, and for a fraction of a second Jaehwan thinks that maybe maybe maybe—he sees pity reflected in those eyes.

 

_forward_

 

“I mean it, you know.”

For once they’re not cooped up in Jaehwan’s apartment; they’ve braved the outside world, normally so foreign to them, to hole up in a coffee shop instead—only because Jaehwan starts bitching that he’s running low on credit and can’t buy any more and needs to use the free wifi. Ghost has bought him a coffee of some sort, but it’s flavoured and disgustingly sweet on his tongue so he’s mostly playing with it as he watches videos.

“Your habit of randomly continuing conversations from weeks ago is annoying, you know,” he replies without even looking up from his phone.

Ghost huffs petulantly and kicks Jaehwan’s shin, harder than strictly necessary. “Don’t get an attitude,” he says, and for a moment he sounds so normal that Jaehwan forgets—but then he looks up and sees Ghost has a hand on his side, where his gun is underneath his jacket, and the threat is clear. “What I said the other evening. I mean it. You’re nearly ready.”

Fear courses through him, raw and blinding—all he sees is blood. He’s not an idiot and he doesn’t have to be told what his final trial is. He’ll kill someone for the first—maybe last—time, and emerge an agent of Vigil. But it’s not the actual deed that’s making his hands shake so hard he puts his phone on the counter so it’s not as obvious. It’s the fact that he’s worried Ghost has taken away his agency completely, rendered him nothing but a blind and deaf killing machine, heartless and unemotional. He knew he was signing up to murder people. He just didn’t know he’d lose himself in the process.

“But my arm,” he says, but it’s weak and they both know it, and Ghost just rolls his eyes.

“I said when it’s healed. And it’s healing. Another three weeks, give or take.” Ghost pillows his head on his arms on the counter, suddenly looking younger than he has any right to. Jaehwan realises he doesn’t even know how _old_ Ghost is—around his age, he guesses, but he could be older or younger. He hasn’t been using honorifics.

He wonders if Ghost even cares.

“How will it work?”

Ghost’s eyes flick up to meet his, and he automatically lowers his voice. “I’ll contact my superiors, the ones who usually give me assignments, and tell them you’re ready. They’ll give you an assignment through me. We’ll go to the location together and I’ll wait for you outside until you’re… done.”

“And then?” Jaehwan whispers, feeling faint.

“And then your trials’ll be done. I’ll cut you—” And Jaehwan knows he means the scar, on his chest, but he can’t help but think of all the other ways Ghost has cut him in the past four months, “—and that’ll be it. You’ll never see me again.”

He doesn’t know whether the feeling flooding into him is relief or regret, and he cannot be bothered to examine it any further.

//

As much as he wishes his arm wouldn’t heal, it does.

It starts when he realises that he can do a push-up without it hurting. Ghost notices, and with a glint in his eye takes them into the countryside once more, where they practice shooting until the dawn rises and spills into the sky. He can once again shoot with both hands—he loathes shooting with his off-hand, his left, but Ghost makes him practice it anyway—without any pain, although his muscles ache afterwards. After that it’s back into their sparring routine. Ghost has length—although he and Jaehwan are roughly the same height, he’s somehow more adept at using his limbs—and Jaehwan has raw strength, so they’re quite evenly matched, although Ghost’s time in the cage has taught him dirty tricks which he never hesitates to use on Jaehwan.

Ghost is just as antagonistic as ever, still as much of as an asshole as Jaehwan knows him to be—waking Jaehwan up in the middle of the night by pouring freezing water on him before getting him to run around the block dozens of times, for no reason in particular; practicing throwing his knives right above Jaehwan’s head—but sometimes, rarely, he catches Ghost looking at him in a way he’s never looked at him before. There’s not affection there, but he’d almost categorise it as pride… if he thought that Ghost was even capable of any emotions that aren’t just rage and vengefulness and complete cold indifference.

Even he’s noticed how he’s changed, too. His body is back to how it was when he was in the army, toned and muscled, _honed_. It’s more than that, though. He rarely goes out during the day now: there’s more people out and about, so more chance of one of them being a threat. He moves differently, carries his body differently; more like a cat, always aware of where his feet are, what his hands are doing. He starts wearing a knife strapped to his thigh like Ghost does, stashes another small one in his boot. His uniform starts to leech of colour; black is safest, allows him to blend in the most, and so it’s this that he wears most of the time.

Soon the wound turns into a scar, and then that begins to fade, too—three weeks comes and goes, and Jaehwan lives in hope that Ghost is drawing this out for a reason. He feels ready, physically, but he isn’t nearly ready enough in his own head. He doesn’t know if he’ll _ever_ be. The seasons change, the world gets cooler... and yet they stay like that, suspended in time in Jaehwan’s apartment, nothing and everything all at once, preparing for a war that Jaehwan isn’t even sure he believes in.

//

One night, he’s woken by Ghost.

It starts much the same: Ghost sitting on top of his hips, the muzzle of his gun pointed to Jaehwan’s temple, Ghost screaming words that don’t mean anything, words that reverb around his head and turn his veins into white noise. He doesn’t even think. He acts. The heel of his palm slams into Ghost’s chin, snapping his head back violently, and before Jaehwan can give him a chance to recover he launches a punch to the side of his head. They both go sailing to the floor, Jaehwan making sure to land with all his body weight on Ghost’s, knocking the wind out of him. He kneels on Ghost’s wrist, ignores the way he yelps and starts punching Jaehwan, but it’s with his left arm, his weaker arm, so it’s okay. His fingers open, and Jaehwan scoops up the gun and presses the muzzle into Ghost’s forehead, flicks off the safety and puts his finger on the trigger.

“One move and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes,” he whispers, an echo of so long ago.

If the last time they ended up like this was uneven, Ghost submitting because he wanted to, this by juxtaposition is genuine. Ghost is panting, pain in his eyes, and he isn’t moving an inch.

Slowly, slowly, the hand that was suspended in midair swinging at Jaehwan’s head lands on his thigh, travels up his hips, curls around his waist. Ghost smiles. It’s that smile that got Jaehwan into this mess in the first place, but still, he is glad to see it. “You’re ready,” he whispers, and Jaehwan _knows_.

“When?” he asks, lowering the gun and shifting his weight off Ghost’s other wrist.

“Tomorrow.”

Jaehwan nods, resolute, even though inside part of him is dead and gone, ashes and dust on the night wind.

//

When Jaehwan wakes, Ghost is sitting on the floor next to his bed, fully dressed with a shotgun in his hands.

Jaehwan knows that shotgun well. _Too_ well, really. He’s spent far too much time these past months taking it apart and putting it back together, over and over even though he tried to tell Ghost that he already knew how to do this, they’d taught him it in the army (Ghost had just rolled his eyes and said the army was for pussies, and Jaehwan had had to look down at the table to bite back a smile lest Ghost smack it from his face). He isn’t the least bit surprised when Ghost pushes it into his hands the moment he’s dressed, wearing his pistol on his chest and a knife around his thigh.

“Do I have to use this?” he asks, curling his hands around it loosely, feeling sick at the prospect.

“You can use whatever you like. Doesn’t matter how it happens,” Ghost replies with a shrug. “This is just in case.”

 _Just in case of what?_ Jaehwan wants to ask, but he doesn’t dare. They make their way down to the carpark (Jaehwan with the shotgun in a holster on his back) but this time Ghost slips into the driver’s seat, leaving Jaehwan to take the passenger side—and he realises Ghost’s phone is on the dashboard in front of him, open to a text message.

_ 1 trgt male 50s 4sns 7flr clrd 4 initiate _

It’s gibberish, but Jaehwan begins figuring it out out loud. “One target, a male in his fifties... What the hell is ‘4sns’?”

“The Four Seasons,” Ghost replies.

“Four Seasons, right,” Jaehwan murmurs, his mind racing. “So he’s rich. 7th floor. Cleared for initiate?”

Ghost nods, setting his lips in a line. “Most of your assignments will be like that, just basic information. It’s up to you to decide how to get the job done. Some prefer to just rush in and deal with whatever comes. I prefer to do reconnaissance to at least get an idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“But it’s a hotel room. How are we meant to observe?”

“I’m not talking about observing the target, although if you can do that, it’s helpful. We observe the hotel, map out the exits, work out where the lifts and the fire stairs are. Note when the cleaning staff do their rounds.” He glances across at Jaehwan. “That’s what I’d be doing, anyway. But this is a… special occasion. You’d do well to just get in and out.”

Jaehwan chews on his bottom lip until it’s bleeding as they drive across the river. He somehow has to get in and out of a presumably very busy hotel, while remaining unnoticed, while toting around a shotgun, his pistol, and a huge knife strapped to his thigh. It’s not going to be easy, he supposes, but then he also supposes he’s known that since the beginning.

A small part of his mind is screaming in frustration that he’s being so emotionless about this, but he ignores it as best he can.

They park some distance away and walk. At this time—the middle of the night, close to dawn—there’s no one about on the streets, and it’s refreshing to just be alone with his thoughts… Or as alone as he can be with Ghost stalking along silently beside him. He can see the hotel, stretching above the other high rises surrounding it, and as they get closer his stomach begins to turn.

“I don’t need this,” he whispers, shoving the duffel bag in which he’d placed the shotgun into Ghost’s hands. “I’ll—I’ll get it done. I’ll be fine.”

Ghost casts an eye over him and drops the duffel bag to reach out and place his hand on Jaehwan’s arm. The touch is friendly, soft, and Jaehwan is so startled by it he freezes in place, eyes wide as Ghost leans closer. “Remember your training,” he whispers, and he’s so close that Jaehwan can practically count his eyelashes. “Trust in yourself. You can do this. I’ll be waiting right here.”

Jaehwan doesn’t reply. He’s not sure if he can. His motor functions are slowly shutting down, his brain refusing to face the atrocity he’s about to commit, and so mutely he turns and lurches towards the hotel, feeling absolutely nothing at all.

//

This is how it happens:

He knocks on the door.

The man answers, clearly confused and sleep-addled, and Jaehwan uses that to his advantage and punches him in the face.

His nose makes a sickening snap as it breaks.

He kneels over the man, writhing on the floor and already beginning to scream, and—

And, moving deliberately and quickly, just as he’s been taught—

With nothing at all in his mind, nothing, nothing nothing nothing nothing not even Ghost not even him not even _Ghost_ —

He slides his knife out from the sheath on his thigh—

And without hesitation draws it across the man’s throat—

Silencing him, slitting his throat, his lifeblood soaking into the carpet.

The man dies, and Jaehwan watches part of himself die with him.

//

How he manages to escape unseen, he doesn’t know. In fact, it seems that one moment he’s kneeling over a corpse and then the very next he’s staggering outside, one arm wrapped around his middle, blood dripping from his legs. Ghost sees him coming, but he’s too late—Jaehwan collapses on the footpath in front of him, shaking, his eyes seeing nothing at all.

“Are you injured?” Ghost barks, dropping to his knees and putting his hands on Jaehwan’s legs, not caring they come back bloody. He’s used to it, by now, after all. “Did he hurt you?”

There’s concern in his voice, and it’s this that makes Jaehwan swim back to himself a little, push himself upright. “He didn’t hurt me,” he pants, raspy. “I—I did it—I _killed_ him—”

This time he knows he’s not making it up. The pride in Ghost’s eyes is as patent and as real as the way he pulls Jaehwan in for a hug, so out of character he’s sure he’s died and this is his path to hell. “I knew you would,” Ghost whispers, and when he pulls back his eyes are shining and Jaehwan dares to hope.

“What have you done to me?” he gasps, his teeth chattering, sure he’s dying. He killed a man he killed a man he killed a man he’s a murderer, and he knows there’s no going back from this now. “What are you? _Who_ are you?”

Just like every other time he asks, he doesn’t expect an answer. But instead Ghost opens his mouth and—“I’m Hakyeon,” he murmurs, and Jaehwan can hear the promise beating in his chest, right next to his heart.

“Hakyeon,” he slurs. His face is wet and he can’t tell if it’s from tears or blood. Probably both. Doesn’t matter. “Hakyeon.”

Part of him died in that hotel room, he knows it—he’s never, ever going to get that part of him back. His humanity is gone. So why, as he sits there on the footpath, bloody and crying and staring at Ghost—at Hakyeon—why does he feel like he’s been reborn?

**Author's Note:**

> wooOOOOOO boy . i LOVE writing shit like this. gritty and dark shit. ppl killing each other. i promise i'm not crazy but there's just something so, so satisfying about exploring the very limit of humanity... and now i'm getting deep again over gay porn (no porn in this one lmao sorry) so i will cease. but yes, I had fun writing this. I'd had the first ~700 words written and it wasn't until I took a day off twitter and reread an old assassin au that i'd written years ago, in a different fandom, that I remembered this and... well, it went from there. it took me 5 days to write YEET
> 
> (also [here's what a chi rho looks like](http://religionfacts.imgix.net/136/147631.jpg?fit=max&h=1400&q=85&w=1400&s=e0d0b51cca7f4e51abea393be6dd66fe/) if you're wondering! it's pronounced kai rho)
> 
> next up in this series: a hyukbin chapter! and then back to wontaek, and then back to haken, etc. i might mix up the order a lil depending on what i'm feeling.
> 
> (i'm also working on about 3948759834759 other long-ass one shots and the next part of incubus is coming soon).
> 
> thanks so much for reading, and remember, comments revive my cold dead heart ♡


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